Journal
NANO ENERGY
Volume 76, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.105087
Keywords
Fullerene-free; Side-chain engineering; Organic solar cell; Isomerization; Aggregated structure
Categories
Funding
- Shen Zhen Technology and Innovation Commission [JCYJ20170413173814007, JCYJ20170818113905024]
- Hong Kong Research Grants Council [R6021-18, 16305915, 16322416, 606012, 16303917]
- Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission [ITC-CNERC14SC01, ITS/471/18]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [91433202]
- Research Grants Council of Hong Kong [AoE/P-02/12]
- ONR [N000141712204]
- Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy [DE-AC02-05CH11231]
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Inner side-chain engineering on Y6 has been proven successful in improving short-circuit current density (J(SC)) through fine-tuning aggregated structures of acceptors. However, it fails in tuning the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level (LUMO) and open-circuit voltage (V-OC). In this paper, we turn to focus on engineering the outer side chains on the flanking thienothiophene units with 4-hexylphenyl (PhC6) and 6-phenylhexyl (C6Ph) chains. Use of PhC6 enhances the steric effect between the attached phenyl and the ending group, which in combination with the additional conjugation effect provided by the linking phenyl leads to upshifted energy levels and increased V-OC as a result. Again, substitution with the bulkier PhC6 unprecedentedly improves film-morphology with reduced paracrystalline disorder and long period and increased root-mean-square composition variations as well, leading to increased electron and hole mobilities and suppressed monomolecular recombination with J(SC) and fill-factor (FF) simultaneously enhanced. The PM6:BTP-PhC6-based devices yield a higher efficiency value of 16.7% than the PM6:BTP-C6Ph-based one (15.5%). Therefore, this study shows a conceptual advance in materials design towards reducing the conflict between V-OC and J(SC) in binary blended organic solar cells, which can be achieved by introducing bulkier chains to twist the backbone and simultaneously enhance the packing order.
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